It is known that some triazole compounds exhibit herbicidal activities (see U.S. Pat. No. 4,280,831, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication Nos. 59-39880, 60-100561, 61-178980, 63-14776, 1-121279 and 2-1481).
However, the conventional triazole herbicides harm crops or are unable to exhibit satisfactory herbicidal activities unless used in large amounts. A need has, therefore, existed for the development of triazole compounds that are free from these problems.
The present inventors directed their attention to the compounds disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication Nos. 1-121279 and 2-1481. They conducted intensive studies in order to develop herbicides that exhibit excellent herbicidal activities in a lower dose than these compounds and furthermore do not cause any injury to crops. As a result, they found that excellent herbicides could be obtained only by replacing a substituent(s) contained in the phenyl group of the compounds mentioned in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication Nos.1-121279 and 2-1481, by the other substituents. The present invention has been accomplished on the basis of this finding.